Weighing the Mask
by Mahakali
Summary: When all humanity has already been banished, what is the prize to create the perfect being? AU NejiTen SasuSaku
1. Chapter 1: White Knight

**I do not own anything. **

**Prelude**

_Hell._

A confined room. Four walls standing over her cuddling form in the marvellous glint of her dreadful nightmares. The darkness leaping, compressing her chest, smirking at her irregular heart race, at her breathless attempts to breathe.

_Prison._

The persecutors walked out of the room, in a somnolent dance, the last man holding her soul in his eyes.

Claustrophobia attacked her as the silver door shut, sealing light away from her. The mechanic lock cried out in protest whilst her cry tore her dry throat.

_Torments, the purgatory. _

A locked place with no keys, no light. With nothing to burn through the skin but the draughtiness of solitude.

_She was burning. _

The days passing without her fists getting a firm grip on them. She was alone onto the verge of anything she had and would continue to fight for.

_They tried murder._

They were waiting for her to collapse soundly under the permanent dim. They were waiting for her to disappear in the mist, her mind blurred by their whispers.

_He was dead._

Then, the torturing thoughts prowled, surrounding her once more. Harassing. Some leisurely breaking through her barriers, sounding like low chuckles.

_She was known to never surrender._

Her body tumbled, crashing soundlessly onto the hard couch. She couldn't move. Her skin repulsed her; it felt like the cement which once drowned this fortress in the bowels of the earth. She couldn't die.

_Her torso was tied to a pike and they were nine contorted faces standing out of the ashen smoke._

She couldn't get away from them. The judges. The memories suppressing the disembowelled stomachs, life she had watched flooding out of inhuman distorted bodies, the last lost bullet. The one she missed... The way she drank in the blood but kept the march of Death on the gore. Below the conspiracies, the corruptions. They speared her body with all the strength of a mocking act. They were troubling, flaying her mind from every drop of sanity.

_She lost her senses. _

She failed, her mask severed. She was now chained to a wall.

She saw herself tumbling, wincing, _**weakening**_. She felt them, _**fed**__**them**_, the monsters, the shadowy figures she deciphered in the captors' heavy breaths as they passed by her cell.

This prison would be her tomb.

_Their eyes reflected the opaque color of the trigger menacing their last fragments of life. The fire rose to the welkin, leaking it hungrily_.

Slivers of the past floated in reach. Screaming. Tearing her entrails so violently that she gasped loudly, wondering if she would ever go back to pale colorless dreams.

_The sand, tainted by the bullets, burned them. The nine ones. _

Wondering if her mask had been slashed by one of them.

If she could weigh it, despite the blood she'd shed, before it could explode in a billion of pieces at her feet.

If she could survive the Ultimate Zone.

_Raw flames unleashed their anger on her flesh as they devoured her alive like insects eating their last meal._

_This was Hell._

-X-

**Weighing the Mask**

**Chapter One: White Knight**

_By Mahakali_

_dedicated to winta-skies_

-X-

_2 years later…_

**The Cage Headquarters,**

**7h32 p.m.,**

**Toronto, stable-zone. **

The buildings stood slyly behind the wall of heavy fog, crushed between the grey sky and the earth where a sea of bodies moved their way through the thickness of the weather. The honks, the screams, the scent of the alleys darkening throbbed ready to explode at each corner.

As he stood over the city he had patterned over the years, he couldn't help but quell a grimace of disdain. Every grey silhouette seemed _**so insignificant**_as they hurried through their day, oblivious to the strings controlling them. The ones lying shamelessly in _his_ open palms. _**His**_ will was their rules. _**His**_ actions, their punishments.

On the twelfth floor, overlooking the faint gleams of the streetlights, Hyuuga Hiaishi allowed a small smirk to crease his thin lips. Every step he allowed the citizens to take was planned before they could even think about taking it. The Cage was dangerous. _**His**_. Living in the darkness, living from them, before attacking the men who had grown to become too rebellious or too curious. _**His.**_ He plunged his lips lightly in the alcohol still holding his dark pearl gaze on his city.

If someone hadn't been awakening in the depths of these roads, the Hyuuga would be sitting at his desk waiting patiently for someone to sacrifice himself. The smirk widened as an amused frown appeared on his forehead.

Years of preparation couldn't change anything. _**He**_ knew everything.

'This will be an interesting game', Hiaishi mused, a wild shadow crossing his features while taking another sip of his whisky.

Who was now defying him?

Usually, the Sound would be the one to send a time bomb. An insect easily crushed under his bare foot but the spectacle remained entertaining. They had never taken back this territory since the Great Invasion. Of course, at that time, the Cage was the Leaf. The old foolish Sarutobi had, then, fought for freedom. To protect the city. Now, he was resting _**freely**_ underground while Hiaishi controlled _**his**_ city.

Only an old toad could think about freedom as the reason, the solution. Underneath the humans' mentality, freedom was too much given. The rebels had dysfunctional minds, it was needed to dispose of them. Freedom could only appear as a shadow, not even as a hope. But for who? Who knew? Who could wake up from the illusion of his twisted freedom? Would they really cry out? For what? Real freedom? Would they even recognize it in reach?

Do they even _know_ freedom?

Harshly, surprised by where his thoughts were carrying him, he turned away from his creation, paused a moment at his desk to place the glass on its edge before glaring at the newspaper. He had to admit that it had been a clever move. A great opening. However, the next move was his.

'_**The slaughter had happened before, two years ago. Lawyers are arguing. What is still doing the infamous sniper, who was declared guilty of the first murders, in jail? (Read more on page A5)'**_

One of his little 'interventions' had been discovered. A quick reaction represented his better way out. With a swift move of the wrist, the newspaper disappeared in the basket at his feet. At twilight, the journalist will do the same. The glassy eyes of two children lying side by side looked desperately at him. Pain twisted their features in a sickening way while traces of hot tears disappeared in the ink used. The dirt supported their bodies, bringing them closer.

Clinging to them.

Death.

Unmoved, he meditated on the game. Caressing thoughtful the petrified facial expressions of his pawns, his fingers moved slowly through the left side of his chess board. In his younger years, when he played his twin brother, he had always chosen the black pieces. Even though the white began the dance, Hyuuga Hiaishi loved ending it abruptly, watching the white king crash down, wood hard against the wooden board. A unique sound. In his games, black means power, the opening of death, the dance of victory. Silence. The very last manipulation. Black means everything that makes its way to the mind, the only slaughter of consciousness. Humans' flaw. In his games, the Queen, the King, even the pawns, pitilessly give the last word. A sentence to death.

He pondered for a short amount of time, if he didn't need a new pawn. A new black blood to care of. A new piece to sculpt. Someone able to hurt, through a veil of lies, striking firmly enough to draw his blood like the red dusk draw the setting sun.

Then, he remembered her black blood streaming, her features always at war. Her eyes. They once sparkled, furious, behind a mask of innocence. She lurched like a lioness, killed like a man and remained an enigma, tying too many maybe's and perhaps' together to be certain.

And the child...

A wild shadow modified brusquely his cold demeanour before leaping back in a world based on the past. Retreating slowly from the game, where a white knight stood alone, facing his army, Hiaishi snorted at the outcome his opponent hadn't certainly considered. Using her.... _The child._.. A white pawn against him? He laughed quietly, smirking to the world outside growing with the lightened floor lamps.

Carefully, he pressed his palms on the ebony desk bending over his intercom. He brushed his index lightly on its surface, bringing the machine back to life.

"Hinata. Send Neji, Miss Haruno, Uchiha and Inuzuka." He ordered coldly, turning back to the game.

Then, he made a black knight entered the game. He would wait before slaughtering the white knight but the eventuality will come. It was meant to be. Smirking, his attention returned to the city downwards. He clasped his hands firmly behind his back, following with his clear eyes one of his men approaching his building, the headquarters of the Cage.

He could admire his whole world by this window.

He sighed silently as four different steps entered his office, waiting quietly for him to address them. The patriarch of the Hyuuga family gazed for a short moment at the reflections of the members of his ANBU unit, at their white porcelain mask hanging dutifully on the side of their right hip.

He didn't like how the pink-haired medic closed the distance between her body and Sasuke Uchiha's neither how he answered to her desire by brushing lightly his fingertips on her elbow. Or the way his nephew, Hyuuga Neji, rebel bangs veiling his disdain, pale skin masking his flaws, anger drifting his facial features to a serious dangerous threat, glared at his back. However, his anger was controlled by lies as long as he was too blind to feel them touching his heartless chest. Only lies could attain him, only perfectly sculpted remembrances of his father could direct his ocean of hatred towards compliance.

Yes, the whole world.

The only one he continued to ignore intentionally was Inuzuka Kiba who stood next to his huge dog. He was too innocent, too cheerful, like Uzumaki Naruto. A perfect element if not angered.

"There is someone in the Ultimate Zone who had caught my interest."

Hyuuga Neji narrowed his eyes at the back of his uncle. They both knew what it meant. It meant someone else in the Cage. Someone else he will have to lock in. But he was the only one seeing it this way. It was a work like another. One on the right side of the road. The dark blood streaming side, but the best choice. A choice his father, his uncle's twin, had made. Thus, he made it too.

This represented his future, his condemning fate. He ought to follow his uncle words because the Cloud vowed for his father's death, because he liked directing the pointed dagger at anyone standing out of the crowded to prove them wrong. To have a purpose. He fought for justice but the cage closed up, trapping him with weapons he knew all too well. From a distant point of view, it was fair. Again, this was the good side of the road.

The danger remained through his words, between the lines. The Ultimate Zone. A jail where the ghosts of those uneasy to kill appear. A place where death wasn't an option, it was only a long length result. Where only plunging into insanity could lighten the agony. He felt his stomach clutch tightly. One of those hundreds underneath cells witnessed his father's death.

Neji pursued his lips at the idea of watching one of those criminals escaped. If his father chose to walk in to save his brother's life and never see the light again, the criminals now mouldering in the same everlasting halls couldn't obtain freedom.

He would make sure she stayed chained. Caged.

"Specialized in weapons, it seems. She once was a sniper." He shrugged lightly but Neji could feel sick burning his throat. His uncle _**wanted**_her. It wasn't just interest. His pearl gaze fluttered quickly to the chess board, to the white knight facing the black one. So another one had tried? He smirked inwardly. The new opponent must be powerful if his uncle needed new flesh in the team.

"She had never once missed a target." Hiaishi continued, shaking softly his head as a small amusement smirk spread his thin lips. As if he knew something, as if he knew her bullets.

He felt a shudder running along his spine. More death. More corpses joining the force. More puppets.

This was his cage. His future. Though, a tool doesn't think. A tool executes orders without a second thought because this tool is named a shinobi, a member of the Cage.

"However, this time, she is my target." His lips forming a hard line, he spoke quietly to mask his bitter tone. "I won't take no for an answer. Tell her she will be free but _**take her**__**down to me**_."

Satisfied with the nods he received from his elite, he smirked barely, victorious. After all, this was his game, his decision, who was winning. Besides, Hiaishi Hyuuga didn't plan on letting anyone have the opportunity to take this right away from him.

"Tomorrow morning you'll go see the lady. Any further information will be sent by the usual system. You're dismissed."

-X-

**Apartment number 9,**

**Midnight,**

**Toronto, stable-zone.**

White.

The color lingering, broadening out his dazzling gleam as the snow fell, frozen, covering the field behind her.

Neji chose not to notice the shades of her warm coffee eyes, how her fingers intertwined with the silver of her gun or how her innocent draped beyond her shoulders a blanket of fear. He only watched, emotionless, the winter.

The coldness of the glinting flakes. The same old sensation groaning in his past, surrounding, screaming in the present, in his apartment.

Only the basic needed furniture hidden by the generous space of the apartment returned his cold gaze. He shifted his weight uncomfortably on the black couch, savouring his colorless environment. Losing looked so much like respecting the shape of an imperishable material. Once you get pass the fear of the doors closing, slamming shut or barely ajar, you simply live on, carrying your burdens and their secrets in the drawers.

In the winter.

The loneliness of the weather gave the picture a time and a place where the scenery could forever last. His never did, even sealed and frozen by his own hand. Memories always found a way to move upwards, to break the wall once in a while. To regain their rights in reality.

In his reality.

She was only another one of his uncle's projects. Nothing but a potential threat for a tangible target.

She would fail like the others.

Her fingers pressed to the knob of the Cage, she probably wouldn't think twice before entering it, closing the door behind her. He could even close his eyes, resting on the idea of her warm smile.

Like the others...

She was like them. Embracing silently death and its irrefutable actions but still willing to gulp droplets of freedom in the most shameful acts.

Just like the others...

Hyuuga Neji didn't consider himself as one of them. Unlike them, he was stone. Among the faked cheers filling the room of hope when the Cage's cities remained a stable zone, he remembered, jaw tightening, that he craved for it.

Pouring blood.

The shameless manners of the overwhelming night claimed its fair hold on his bloodlust. Masked, he was a fighter reserving his boiling hatred for those idiots who stood up against the Cage.

Crushing bones.

Freedom chooses sharp values while he never will. He preferred his distorted ideology of freedom. The dark brown haired man of the shadows, the eagle surveying his next prey. The one who never protected anyone but himself from the blows.

Destroying lives.

He _**enjoyed**_ killing them, thinking with a hint of pride drawing a smirk to his lips, that as long as he lived they would be dying.

A judgement never remained, the actions always made the balance.

Standing up, he approached his library case running his fingers on the covers of the few books he had allowed himself to acquire. He tapped his index lightly on a dark blue covered book before pulling it out of the shelf.

_Tenten. _No surname, pathetic.

Returning to his leather couch, he opened the book at the page he was at two months ago. Unable to concentrate fully, Neji snorted disdainfully closing brusquely the folder Hiaishi had sent him and dropping the book away from his laps. Resting closed lids, he thought about how ironic it was. Her name claimed that she had fallen from heaven when she was, now, falling in his uncle's claws. Hell.

Trapped in this deathly web, she would submit before dying. It had been painted over the years, an endless circle even the members of the Cage never dared to outlaw.

Those were the game's rules.

Again, her small smile embracing the warmth of the lies filled his mind. Praying his mind away from her, he had a vast impression of void.

There was no way out, no feeling attached, only the end drawing its steps closer as the days passed. When she will stop in front of the cliff, he would be the one present to push her down.

Unknown, locked in her cellule, she belonged to him in the most depraved ways. She was a threat. His downfall progressing shamelessly towards him.

Now entirely gazing at the happiness forming at the corner of her full lips, he realised he _**ought**_ to kill her. To spread her blood across his past like all the others. Smirking, he continued glancing with pearl predatory eyes at the winter lying in the background. The blinding color stood suddenly taller, shielding her small body like only a white knight would have.

Unfortunately, he didn't notice.

-X-

**The Ultimate Zone,**

**10h17 a.m.,**

**Five floors underground, neutral-zone.**

_Tauntingly, the shadows espoused her facial features, hindering her silhouette through the rising wind. She could taste the miles she had crossed on her tongue by the way dust paled the original color of her army boots. The hot air was heavy, carrying the sweat of the unknown, the predator with no face, no name, who was about to strike blindly. Narrowing her eyes at the sudden asperity breath of the sky, the woman bent her head searching for her targets. The sand ragged around her blurring her vision, blurring her fists as they tightened their hold on her revolver. _

_Her throat burned, the grains of sand slapped her forcibly. _

_She barred her teeth, her muscles of her arms corded as she raised her weapon. Silver weighed heavily against her shoulder. She could do this. She had to. _

_The nine shadows before her turned slowly their heads towards the dunes as she pulled the trigger veiling their world with velvet red. Silk fluids pouring on the ground before being taken by the thin fingers of the wind. _

_The scavengers glided, letting out excited piercing screams. _

_The sun burned her nape, the sand suffocated her but under their feverish touch, the bullets pierced savagely their skin. _

_One by one, in slow motion, nine cartridges fell at her feet. _

_It was over. _

Different.

The prisoner blinked her limbs motionless, her fingers still damp with the ink of the newspaper.

The haze of both children's eyes approached the most desperate attempt to escape the blows erupting brusquely. It tasted so different than the ones she was used to. It had been drawn with a different ink than the surprised widened eyes of her victims, her bullets still traveling under their flesh.

So different.

Her name. The journalist wrote her name. Tenten. As she lost her soul in the depth of the darkness, she had considered herself as Phoenix, the woman who always came back, or Leiko, the arrogant woman who answered to her captains, disobeyed them outrageously but she still always walked back in the base defying her comrades to bet again on her life. She was the one who always found a way in but even more easily a way out.

Once. Once ago, she could have never been chained.

These vaporous pictures of the past hovered around her only as hollow memories, some sentences she had been chanting aloud over and over to remind herself she had survived.

Carefully, she stretched her neck, peaking on the captor's rhythmic steps. She remembered now. The revenge, the blood, the anger, why she dreamed of those veiled eyes…

Gradually, her senses began to recover from the slumber still stiffening her muscles. They left her two years to agonize over the murder of two children. The ones she was supposed to have killed. The whispers told her she did.

She could remember the blood creeping on her tights as she towered them. Behind her closed lids, she could almost smell the sweat of fear of her preys. The cries cleaving brutally along with her blade.

What if they were only that? Poor pathetic dreams. Ones they had forged for her?

Only one place remained. A piece of the puzzle, sailing on the blood.

Jericho, unstable-zone, at the moment. Her eyes narrowed as she leaned back against her uncomfortable couch.

Her long messy strands didn't overshadow her smirk as she let the newspaper slipped from between her fingers. It was almost time.

Time to avenge herself.

In the depths of the earth, laughter rose above the strained stillness.

Someone had finally awoken.

It was almost time to escape the Ultimate Zone.

* * *

This is a new revised version. The story hasn't changed but still I think it's lighter. ;)

Thanks to those who have reviewed/faved or simply enjoyed it in silence.

-Mahakali


	2. Chapter 2: Crumbled Tower

_They were coming. _

Immortal, locked away from the sound of the bending wind, from the broken leaves falling from the cold, Tenten lied arms crossed drifting. Time leaped, forging its way around her cell.

It wouldn't take her.

Two years. Only 730 days, still she felt it weighing gloomily on her muscles, drowning her in the vast waters of reality.

Freedom was going to be offered as a poisonous gift. It would sparkle, its charms hurtling towards her body ready to crush it. Temptation would damn her.

_They were running towards her. _

_Above, where the sun was allowed to shine, the steps pounded._

Absently, she remembered the mask of those who chained her. She didn't remember the color but she remembered the ink wavering in their pools as his eyes drank her soul away.

Anger, hatred, progressing among the shades she imagined curling around the street. The darkness were falling, foreshadowing the issue of an old battle. It covered the masked faces. His.

_He, of all eyes, was among them._

_And he still held her soul against his chest. _

"It doesn't matter anymore." Closing her eyes, she mouthed the words.

She was also made of darkness. Yet, hers were rippling brusquely against her skull, through her blood. They nourished her with the past and its bitter taste. His were ridding his sanity, the flow of his bloodlust constantly being held by choice. He was a puppet, a killer whilst she was herself.

His hatred remained twisted by the savour of revenge. Hers crawled into corruption each time she killed. She is a warrior in the darkest hours of sunlight; she lives from cold stratagems, from the outlines of freedom.

However, her biggest battle was ahead.

_They had the order to destroy her._

_The old puppets... made of wood not of flesh and feelings._

_Their steps pounded and the earth opened its entrails to them. _

_The Ultimate Zone. _

Rising from her lying position, her feet touched lightly the floor as she rose up her hand. The fists clenched, grabbing the last hold of the darkness as a small smirk crept onto her lips.

_She began her race towards them. _

-X-

**Weighing the Mask**

**Chapter Two: Crumpling Tower**

_By Mahakali_

-X-

**The old quarters of the Rebels,**

**02:26 a.m.,**

**Toronto, stable-zone.**

Stealthily, his steps echoed metrically through the dark abyss of the night. His feet seemed to glide on the pavements barely touching it as they progressed through the alley. His eyes searched the darkness, his breath was held steady and silent and he marched. Listening to the wind, he suddenly smirked. This time, he would be the predator.

The wind played in the leaves at his feet, pushing, above, the clouds in front of the moon. He panted softly as the moonlight disappeared leaving him alone. Soundless. In the darkness.

He only lost the rhythm a second but it was already too late.

He cringed inwardly turning at his left, his shoulder brushing against the stony wall. As sweat dripped from his forehead, he felt the breath of a chuckle finding him.

He was the prey yet again.

"Too slow." The night muttered sinisterly, unseen.

Menacingly, the faint smell of a silver blade enveloped him and covered his senses. Stopping in his race, he turned slowly on himself trying to locate the other intruder.

Fear approached in steady steps taking him in his tango as laughter erupted.

Savagely, the blade cleaved the air leaking his blood that poured darkly onto its surface. Ruthless, the moonlight appeared, reflecting its sparkle on the silver accompanying the sadistic bliss twisting the Master's lips upwards.

His heavy breaths drew the coldness in a blur as he eyed the blade against his neck.

"Really too slow." The smirk widened. "Just like your father. Trying to track me was a bad idea. The kind only an idiotic genius can get."

"Troublesome." The Nara muttered under his breath trying to inch away from the blade. He held up his hands in front of him trying to pierce the shadows but the Master came closer imprisoning both his hands in an iron grip before he could activate the trap.

"Give it to me, _**you shrimp**_." The Master ordered in a menacingly low tone. "You don't want me to kill that female of yours, no?" The voice smirked as the Nara locked eyes with him placidly. "Oh? You thought I wouldn't know. **Do not underestimate my strength.** I was even polite with you. I _**asked**_ you to find it for me." Despite the night still ruling, the man could feel the real threat hanging in the air. "Now, I'm going to take-."

"Underneath his tomb, troublesome old man." The young man said quickly. "She hid it there. The Sōshōryū." He inhaled soundlessly praying the giant's hands away from him.

Sadistic bliss spread through his calculating features. "Well then, let the war begins..."

The darkness closed its arms around the whisper taking it towards the other side of the town, where a mistress lied asleep.

"... for the second time."

But no one remained to hear or to remember. Only the dead answered growling along with the wind in the night.

-X-

**The Ultimate Zone,**

**02:27 a.m.,**

**Five floors underground, neutral-zone.**

_One by one, in slow motion, the nine cartridges fell at her feet. _

_It was over. _

_One lied face distorted, slowly falling in Death's open arms but the others lied dead._

_Softly, she whistled in the wind by three times. Someone answered her after a few seconds. _

_Still concentrated, she moved under the sun, disappearing through this battle and the souls haunting it. Her feet brushing soundlessly the ground as she made her way through the dunes. _

_She froze as she approached the cadavers. _

_She had missed... _

_Widening her eyes, she disappeared in her fear moving as she had been taught to shaking her head over multiple impossibilities. _

_Behind to her, through the sand twirling around her, a breath rasped. A sore throat coughed as her face lost its colors._

_His knees hurt the ground first as he smiled for the last time, his hand clutching his bleeding stomach. _

"_The General wishes to speak... to.... to you..." _

_He fell, raising above the sand the scent of blood. _

_One of her cartridge had missed. _

Opening her eyes sharply, she ended the dream, her rib cage contarcted. She exhaled brusquely, her blood erupted in her veins pushing her from the couch and he was dead. Walking in circle like a lion in cage, she tried to cool down. To never let her guard down, that was one of the rules. Sleeping or awake, she must never let her emotions control her. She wasn't a weakling.

Lee's death would never help her, she knew it.

The past destroyed her, she ignored it.

She stopped walking, feeling softly the wall at her reach. A slow smile crept on her smile as she remembered the plan. Her nails dug in the solid material drawing the blood and the pain.

A soldier must always stick to the plan.

She had changed. This time... She inhaled slowly composing her mask. This time, no one will trap her. She will remain free.

No one... Absolutely no one...

She wouldn't make the same mistake twice in the same lifetime. She smiled, emotionless, returning to her couch.

And she waited.

A lioness prowled somewhere in the darkness, a gulf enveloping her with the most sadistic ways of life.

Death.

-X-

**Ultimate-Zone; Level 9**

**11:08 a.m.**

**Five floors underground, neutral-zone**

_Grey._

The faint dim showed her world in grey shades, dimming only the shadows of her anger. The chair was rough against her back. Her hands' heat pressed on the cold iron forged table... Too cold. Too real.

_She could spit ashes with her hatred. _

_She could kill the unseen in this world of shadows. _

_She could become a traitor if it wasn't of life. _

The table standing in front of her and emerald eyes... Too human. Too warm. They sparkled, they smiled and she knew... They knew; she wanted them frozen. Forever. Sculpted by ice.

How could she dare to smile? Didn't she know?

The smile widened, outgrowing the lines of her lips. It made her sick. It made her want to snarl, scream, at her that she had shed so much blood that she is drowning permanently in its waves. That she can't feel.

That she's going to kill her.

The woman began asking her how she felt, if she was well treated. The words flooded out of her mouth as spilled blood, drop by drop.

She didn't answer. She was trying to hide her smirk. She certainly could feel _that_...

He was behind the window. He remained hidden but she felt him as adrenaline rushed through her system. She could smell the gun pointed at her skull. This feeling of loneliness of being so far away from anyone and anything to care about the bullet plunging her into the darkness. Death and its servitors beyond the cliff. Waiting, lunging for hope. Only a gun able to spill her lifetime in a matter of seconds could remind her that she was human.

_It was a lie. She wasn't. _

And that gun could always turn back on him. Then, the tower would crumble, him in it.

"I am Haruno Sakura. I'm working for the Cage and..."

She looked straight at the window smirking to herself. Foreplay, another thing she hadn't tasted since her last bullet.

The gun weighed heavy on her hand. She was back to her old self.

_She could kill and appear as an angel of Death._

And so the bullet hit the glass, shattering their destiny in a thousand of shimmering pieces.

-X-

_One day later... (future)_

_**The Rosa Hotel,**_

_**01:08 a.m.**_

_**Near Toronto, stable-zone.**_

Her bound chest raised under the rhythm of her soft breathing. The shadows moved around her and she was fighting against herself to remain with opened eyes. She shook her head in the slow motion of the stubborn drunkards.

She never drinks... Her guard... to never let it down.

Vaguely, she heard the window open softly and the wind surrounding her suddenly with its cold chill. Night fell slowly over her as her lids fluttered close for good.

_She was trapped. _

Her hand hit the glass making it roll under the mattress. She couldn't think in straight sentences anymore. She never did perceive sounds around her anymore. The steps approached her form in a victorious dance as her body sank slowly in the pillows.

_She was floating. _

The intruder smirked approaching her sleepy form sliding his gloved hand in his long leather coat. He observed her placidly until a sad smile crept his lips. She had grown so much since the last time. He laughed bitterly; yet, she was as careless as before.

"Damn little shrimp..."

_She was screaming. _

He leaned forward and barely touched her cheek with his fingers. She didn't react to his touch and she drifted in his drug.

"Kill him." If she would have been awoken he knew she would have raised a brow to his arrogant tone. He smirked slowly retreating from her body. If she would have been awoken... He didn't know how she would have reacted to his presence.

'The Hyuuga's fault.'

In haste, he set a package next to her before leaping back in the blackness, the window closing in an abrupt sound behind him.

Maybe she would have run away from him...

Sweat ran down her brows as the drugs took her entirely to never remember. Her fingers barely touched the blade underneath the rough paper but somehow, far away in her subconscious she knew.

It had come back to her.

To the glory of the past, for the blood it had shed under the stars and on the sand, the Sōshōryū shone in the night for the first time in two years lying next to his mistress.

-X-

_Back to the present..._

**Ultimate zone; Level 9**

**11:11 a.m.**

**Undefined, neutral-zone**

"Something is wrong." Uchiha Sasuke frowned watching the room behind the window where his lover was talking with a murderer.

At his left, the Hyuuga smirked at his rival, still holding his gun towards the window.

"Worried about Haruno, Uchiha?"

The black haired man turned slowly his head towards Neji without tearing his onyx eyes from the two women. He didn't like having her on the other side.

"What about you, Hyuuga? Worried enough about this creature to make you lose your cool and point your gun at her." He replied coldly crossing his arms as a smirk drifted on his face.

In answer, he shot a disgusted look at his companion.

"This isn't about puppy love unlike you." He replied with disgust readjusting his gun in his suddenly sweaty hand.

It wasn't like on the picture. He couldn't just ignore the warmth, her coffee eyes and her smile. All Gone. Because they were gone. Leaving the void. The mystery of her imprisonment of his uncle's interests. It stood bare overshadowing her form. It was her phantom, her follower.

Because, slowly, as a rippling lake he would look upon, instead of her skinny body, of the hags clothing her last remaining of dignity, he saw himself appearing. Behind the mask, seated among those grey tones, looking upon hatred... It could have been him.

"What is it about then, Hyuuga? Lust?" He snickered. "You lust her?"

Suddenly, Inuzuka Kiba appeared loudly holding three coffees in his hands as his dog didn't leave his side. Akamaru sniffed loudly near the door yapping softly before carrying on towards the window.

"So? Is she in?" He looked about both the men glaring at each other. "Guys? What's going on?"

His dog barked, his white paws resting against the cold window. Kiba arched a brow slowly turning his head towards his dog while repeating his question once more. The rivals deliberately ignored the Inuzuka both returning to the contemplation of Sakura talking with the prisoner.

"No, this is about her death." Neji answered quietly lowering his gun a little so he could aim her heart.

Suddenly, the woman raised her head from her hands looking straight at the window. Her lips quivered, drawing their slight lines upwards in a shadow smirk. Even though she couldn't see him, her hazel eyes pierced through him.

Her calmness weighed down his smirk. She was his prey. A savage beauty only reserved to him.

_She couldn't forget the past and so couldn't he._

And so the bullet hit the glass, shattering their deaths in a thousand of shimmering pieces.

-X-

**Ultimate zone; Level 9**

**11:11 a.m.**

**Undefined, neutral-zone**

The words flowed. Suddenly, abruptly. She let them overpower her mouth, glare at the pink haired lady. Time was running out, excitation would shoot through her as the silver and its burden modified the atmosphere.

"When was the Cage created?"

_They were here. _

"I..."

"Answer."

_They were running around her. _

_Under, where only terror was allowed to shine, the steps stopped._

"Two years ag-..."

"Why?"

"The Rebels from the army..."

_He, of all eyes, was behind them._

_And he still held her soul while aiming at her heart. _

"It's clearly a lie."

"... I'm afraid I cannot answer."

"Again... it's clearly a lie."

"There was a traitor..."

"_Who's the boss_?"

"I don't understand why you must ask this kind of questions. It's the only way you would ever be set free..."

"_**Who's the boss?**_"

"Hiaishi Hyuuga."

_They followed the order to destroy her._

_The old puppets... made of wood not of flesh and feelings._

_Their steps pounded and Death along with destiny opened their arms. _

_Their last moment. _

"I thought so..."

And so the bullet hit the glass, shattering their beliefs in a thousand of shimmering pieces.

_She began killing them. _

-X-

**Ultimate zone; Level 9**

**11:20 a.m.**

**Undefined, neutral-zone**

He would have never guessed that he was going to die that way. Her smile icily showed her teeth, raging through her whole face.

_The flames of Hell. _

Her eyes screamed her freedom. She didn't need that pink haired woman her head now bleeding against the wall to tell her what it was. She didn't care about onyx eyes staring coldly at her while reaching for his gun or about his jaw locking as his love lost consciousness.

She was looking at _him_. She was killing _him_. Not the others.

_She had dark wings, she was his destroy and his alone._

It seemed so far away... The sound of curses, the dog barking and the anger slipped by the Uchiha...

He was looking at _her_. He was about to be killed by _her_. Not the other ghosts... only her.

The destroyed window glimmered darkly like sorrow as another shout was lost, never reaching his ears. He didn't move since the moment his gun hit on the ground, since the moment she appeared.

'She had changed so much.' He couldn't help thinking.

He could feel the flames dancing in her eyes burning him. He could feel how she had been used, how he could have used her on his own. How he only chained her.

But he was going to die.

_She ached for blood. His blood and his taste. _

Among the walls which had witnessed his father's death, he was going to be shot.

Cold silver pressed to his left temple, his own weapon lying at his feet, he realized she was breathing from death.

_A demon. _

She was like him. A crumbled tower, no one has heard screaming to Death yet.

And so the bullet curved with the air reaching the last point of existence.

* * *

_This is the new version so I hope you liked it. Next chapter will be upload soon, it's almost over. ^_^_

_See yahh!_

_-Mahakali_


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